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DAY 1
Spent a couple of hours sitting in a cafe at KL airport after eating yummy lasagne. Got chatting to a lovely lady from Washington DC who donated her japanese & malaysian coin collection to me when she saw how excited i was that i had finally got my first malaysian coin. Yeah you all know me by now, i get excited over tiny things :). She was quite obviously horrified when she found out our destination and wondered why we wanted to go there, at this particular time. She wished us well, donated more coins and then left. That was pretty much our highlight of KL Airport. We do plan on going back on the return trip to our little cafe and ordering one of their delicious looking cakes and smoothies :)
On route to Istanbul:
Pretty uneventful flight with very little sleep due to cramped conditions and a cold cabin. Aleisha complained about being woken at around 2am by being offered 'weird stinky s***' (her words, not mine)!!
Found our way through the airport easily thanks to my pre-printed map!
Globus was supposed to meet us but were not there. After going into a mild panic not knowing what to do, Aleisha found him about 15mins later! He was however waiting for somebody else and we weren't on his list at all :(. After seeing our vouchers he agreed to transport us to the motel ....phew!
Just arrived at our hotel Grand Surmeli in Istanbul. The hotel appears to be a very smart, sophisticated hotel located near nothing of importance. Walking through a metal detector at the entrance was an unusual surprise. We have a welcome dinner tonight in the Aquarium Restaurant at 7pm where we will get more details of our tour and meet our tour leader.
The ride to the hotel went through the outskirts of the city, which seemed to go on forever. The freeway was impressive with a speed limit of 70 (though most seemed to ignore this) and buses have their own fenced off areas in the middle. The driving is erratic with no indicators used and pretty much people going in all directions whenever they want, oh and lots of horn honking!
Had a nice free buffet breakfast at the hotel with great choice selection and attentive, friendly staff.
Just noticed that my baggage lock has been opened by the airport - not sure why? Aleisha forgot her lock so they got easier access to hers! There was one thing missing from my bag however - my Globus bag tag :(
We now need some euro cash to pay for our optional extra excursions, but have no idea where to get it from AARRGGHH! Wish I'd remembered at the airport. Off to go ask at reception.
After a nice walk through the business district we found the currency exchange office with fantastic directions from the reception desk. Unfortunately the man at the exchange office didn't speak English.... Hmm a growing trend I'm finding. Call me naive but I would just think that if you're working in a business that has a high foreigner clientele that a pre-requisite would be to speak even some basic English. Clearly I've lived in the lucky country too long. OK so we fumbled through it and got our Euro sorted. Then off for a long walk, where we found the Istanbul Cevahir Shopping Centre. The best shopping centre I've been in. Approx 6 levels of top quality shops and a giant clock on the dome glass ceiling. Metal detectors are present at all entrances including the carpark! Stradivarius was my fave where I bought a few items including jeans (called pantalons!) and Aleisha and I pre-prepared for our mosque visit tomorrow by buying a head scarf each. Couldn't decide what I wanted to eat - everything was in Turkish with no prices or explanations of the products on most items!! So we sat and watched a giant Jenga demonstration and watched everyone walk past. Obviously lots of women in berkas, and most conservatively dressed. A minority wore tank tops or sleeveless tops with shorts. At one stage a glammed up couple doing a photo shoot caught a lot of attention. Probably because the girl wore a fluoro orange mini dress and cobalt blue pumps..... Not your everyday wear for a typical Istanbul native from what we've witnessed. Bit odd wearing sunglasses inside too, but each to his own :)
Bought a delicious pretzel from a street vendor (reminiscent of Munich) for 1TL, which is roughly 53c....delicious. Oh and bottles of water - are you ready for it????.... 50 Kurus (27c)..... are you kidding me!!!!! And better still, cold ones were the SAME PRICE... No way! Aleisha and I stocked up of course!! Tempting to buy a whole carton for the entire trip but somehow I think Globus will say no :(. Be interesting to see if the prices differ in other areas.
Just met our tour guide Izzet and 31 other passengers on our tour. Izzet has quite a strong Turkish accent so hopefully we can all understand what he's saying. Lots of visitors from Sydney and USA, 1 man from New Zealand and a group from Taiwan now living in USA. We sat with Kate & Kerry from Sydney who were also an Auntie & Niece couple! We were welcomed with a cherry and orange fruit cocktail, not being a cherry fan I didn't drink all mine but Aleisha was finished before we did the toast!! For dinner we had cream of mushroom soup followed by chicken kebabs served with diced vegetables and fettuccine with a napolitano sauce. Dessert was almond mousse with vanilla ice cream.... Very nice. We called it an early night at 9pm in the hope of catching up on some serious shut-eye. See you tomorrow for our first outdoor adventure with the whole group :)
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